Silence
by Stretch
Summary: She wonders if it will always be like this: her clinging desperately to Jacob, him the only solid thing in her world. The last few months, the last few minutes, they’re all a blur save for his face, his smile, the strength of his hands... New Moon
1. Resuscitation

She wonders if it will always be like this: her clinging desperately to Jacob, him being the only solid thing in her world. The last few months, the last few minutes, they're all a blur save for his face, his smile, the strength of his hands. Hands that now clutch her to his chest and try in vain to keep the ever more biting rain from hitting her in the eyes. Hands that moments ago literally pounded the life back into her body.

"Bella!" he had screamed at her through the seawater soaked into her muscles, through the air that couldn't get in. "Don't leave me, Bella! Breathe, Bella! Damnit, Bella, breathe!"

So she did, and each breath cut through her lungs like a knife. But Jacob had gone through all the trouble of saving her – she figured she at least owed him that much. Still dying had been painless. It was living, it was life that hurt more than anything else.

Jake deposited her gently on the couch, then went back to slam the door against the quickly darkening sky. He was back before she had time to blink, crouched on the floor in front of her, yet still tall enough to stare her in the eye.

"Do I need to get you to a doctor?" he asked, one errant hand reaching out the push the matted hair back from her face. The hospital was the last place Bella wanted to be right then. She opened her mouth to speak, but the simple act of exhalation burned her throat so wickedly that the only sound that emerged was a weak moan. She settled for just shaking her head vehemently.

Jake sighed deeply, but relief was starting to eat away at the worry lines that marred his face. "Bella, why couldn't you have just waited for me?" he murmured. "I called your house like 9 times this morning and told you I'd be late."

"What?" Bella mouthed wordlessly.

"Yeah, I had to take Dad to the airport, he's flying out to see Rebecca for the week. Harry was supposed to take him but he called at dawn saying that something was up with Leah and – look, it doesn't matter."

But his hand shivered against her face. Shuddered, like he was angry, trying to hold his skin together. "It's just…Jesus Bella," he finally hissed. "Would it have killed you to wait for once in your life? What if…if I'd so much as caught one more red light…if something happened to you Charlie would just give up. Period! And you know that!"

But they weren't talking about Charlie – not really.

And they _both_ knew that.

Jacob's breath was hot against her face, his entire body quivering from head to toe. But his voice was tightly controlled again, so like Sam's voice, rough and hardened from the truth. His words pierced her eardrum, lanced swiftly into her brain where they stayed, lodged, springing roots, invading and infecting and making in impossible not to feel their sting. "You can't be selfish with your life Bells," he said flatly. "Not when other people care about you. Not when I…"

He never finished. Instead he peeled himself off the floor, away from her, and disappeared down the hallway. "You're alive and that's what matters."

He reappeared, carrying a pile of towels and wearing a somber expression, his face stiff. "You know where the bathroom is – go get warm, I'll try and find you some clothes." He brushed her face briefly, apologetically, with the back of his hand. Bella left him standing here, in front of the couch, staring at nothing and wringing his hands.

Numb.

* * *

After the day's earlier adventure Bella figured the last thing she'd want would be more water. But as the shower washed away the gummy salt residue on her skin, and warmed her freezing limbs she found herself languishing in it.

Up until now her actions, her attempts to seek danger had been little more than foolish. The thought of facing the assailants who had cornered her that night in Port Angeles had frightened her, yes. But approaching some men outside a well lit pub and in the company of her girlfriend was probably only dangerous in her head. And motorcycles aren't without their share of risks, but Jacob was teaching her, and he knew what he was doing, both when it came to mechanics and looking after her.

But standing on the edge of that cliff this morning, looking down at the waves, knowing that she didn't have a clue what she was doing and simply _not caring_? Understanding that she could have been dashed upon the cliff face, or towed out to sea, and choosing to jump anyway? That had been dangerous. But even worse than that wasn't the fact that she had deliberately put herself in danger, but that when it had mattered the most Bella stopped fighting. After all the adventures and danger and risk just to keep her alive, at the bottom of the ocean Bella had been willing to give that all away. And for what? A voice? Something she knew to be unreal?

All these months she had been living a half life, utterly incomplete, desolate, alone. But the realization that she had been about to surrender it all hit Bella harder than any of those pains ever could. Jacob was right – she was selfish. Her mind played horrible images for her to see: Charlie and Renee sobbing over and empty coffin, her name etched in a marble slab, tears pouring down the faces of Angela, Mike…Jacob.

Selfish.

Bella put her face up against the spigot of the shower, and let the tears wash away before they could even touch her cheeks. Throughout her life Bella found herself thinking of the heroines in her books when she needed guidance the most– drawing on their insight to get her through, borrowing on their strength when she didn't have enough of her own. But sobbing in the Black's shower in the middle of a thunderstorm, Bella found herself thinking not of Elizabeth, Juliet, or Tess, but of her own mother.

It was hard to see past her faults sometimes. Renee was flighty and scatterbrained, forgetting the most trivial details, misplacing everything. But she had not been much older than Bella when she had taken her baby, packed her bags, and walked out of the only life she'd ever known. It would've been simple for Renee to have remained in Forks. Charlie was by all accounts a good man – set in his ways and a bit quiet, but honorable to a fault. Life in Forks would have been easy, safe, even comfortable. And yet Renee, armed with nothing more than a desire for something greater, for a love that was greater, had walked out of that safety and into the blackness of the unknown, and with an infant daughter no less. What strength must that have taken, what bravery, what hope.

Bella tried to picture herself there, standing in her mother's shoes, and wondered if she would've been able to even get one foot out the door. Her life seemed too hard now – a yoke she was not fit to carry. But in looking back, in holding it up next to Renee's…well, it seemed so much lighter. Renee had been brave, and Bella owed it to her mother, if not to herself, to try and find that same strength within her.

She couldn't keep living like this.

She wouldn't.

Bella shut off the shower and leaned her forehead gently against the damp tile wall. Maybe she couldn't put the pieces of her heart back together again, but for the first time since that last fateful walk in the woods, she felt as though maybe she could find a way to carry on without them.

Maybe.

* * *

Jacob had put a pile of dry clothes outside the bathroom door, leftovers from the twins. Bella had to roll the workout shorts twice to keep them from falling off her non-existent hips, and the Habitat for Humanity shirt smelled musty, but they were warm and dry and that mattered more than anything.

The Weather Channel was flickering on the television in the living room, Jacob watching it out of the corner on his eye while he tucked sheets into the sofa cushions. Most of the Olympic peninsula was obfuscated by a red mass that seemed to hover on the radar, rather than moving like a normal storm. It looked as though it was going to be a long night. The windows rattled in their frames as a gust of wind battered the tiny house, confirming her sentiment.

"Feeling warmer?" Jake asked as she sidled into view. Bella could only nod in response, but it seemed to brighten his mood considerably. Before she could ask why he was making up the couch, or even protest he swept her off her feet and into his arms, wrenching her into a hug.

He buried his face into her wet hair, and sighed an apology into her scalp. "I'm sorry about earlier--"

From the kitchen the phone rang sharply, cutting him off. With a sigh Jacob untangled himself from Bella and disappeared through the doorway.

"Charlie?" she heard him say. "Is everything okay?" She limped quickly back into the kitchen trying to read his face.

There was more loud squawking from the headset, but Bella couldn't quite make out the words over her own ragged breathing. "Uh-huh…absolutely Charlie, you know that…of course we'll be careful, is there anything…" Jake's face suddenly looked panicked, and he reached into the sink behind him, filled a glass up with water, and thrust it into Bella's hand, motioning for her to drink. "No, she just ran into the twin's room to try and find some dry clothes, hold on, I'll go get her." He covered the mouthpiece with his hand, and then started walking loudly in place.

"Drink," he hissed at her. "Your Dad wants to talk to you, and I don't want to explain to him that you can't talk properly because you almost drowned on my watch."

Bella waved her hands back and forth and tried to back away, but Jacob brought the phone back to his mouth and caught the sleeve of her shirt with his free hand, then pushed the glass up to her lips "Hang on Charlie, she's barricaded in the bathroom trying something on."

Bella chugged the water, trying to ignore the fact that it burned like fire trickling down her throat. When she had drained it Jake swapped the glass for the phone before she could protest. "Dad?" she rasped hesitantly into the receiver, her voice sounding like that of a 60 year old chain smoker.

"Bella," he replied far too loudly. "I can barely understand you – the wind's really playing havoc with the phone lines." Bella sighed in relief, one bullet dodged. "Look, the weather is getting really bad and it's about to get a whole lot worse. 60 mph winds and hail they're saying. This thing just kicked up outta the blue, part of that whole el Nino phenomena or something. The department of water and power is predicting massive outages, mayor's worried about the roads. I'm headed into the station, and I don't want you to leave the Black's house until I call you – you understand me."

"Yes sir," Bella murmured as loudly as she could. She could hear the sounds of Charlie's keys clinking in the background. "You be careful."

"I will Bells, I gotta run. Stay inside and remember I love you, okay?" he practically screamed into the receiver. In the background Bella thought she heard the doorbell chime. It sounds like chaos back home.

"I love you too, Dad," she replied harshly, trying to be as loud as possible. Still her voice didn't seem willing to raise above whisper volume. She hoped Charlie had heard her. Trouble was hard to come by in Forks…at least the kind of trouble that involved the police. But when it did…well Charlie wasn't as young as he used to be, and Bella just worried. She handed the receiver back to Jake reluctantly.

"Staying here tonight?" he asked, putting the glass back in the sink and the phone on the counter. Bella nodded, and Jake smiled. "I figured – it's…it's really bad outside. I ran out to the garage to get a few things." He jerked his head in the direction of the back door, and Bella saw a pile of flashlights and tools and what looked like a tarp sitting in a wet heap on the doormat. "I could barely see the house just standing by your truck it was coming down so hard."

Bella shot him a puzzled look, which he interpreted perfectly. "Just in case," Jake reassured her, by way of the tools. "If the power goes or we spring a leak. Luck favors the prepared."

"Luck doesn't favor me at all," Bella muttered harshly.

Jake barked a harsh laugh, drifting into the living room where he spread a blanket over what Bella now knew to be her temporary bed. "Actually, depends on how you look at it. Storm like that, it's gonna wash your scent off of…well, practically everything. Means we won't have to deal with the hunter for a while."

Not exactly the reassurance that Bella was looking for. She shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature. Jake noticed, laying a warm hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry. Nothing's gonna touch you while I'm around – I won't allow it," he declared. Bella wanted to tell him that he didn't understand the situation, he didn't fully comprehend the depths of Victoria's wrath the way she did, but she knew it was a useless argument.

"So," he said decisively, obviously trying to change the subject. "Want me to pop in a movie and a frozen pizza? You must be hungry." But food was the last thing on Bella's mind.

"I know it's early," she muttered, "but I really just want to crash."

"Sure, sure – you must be wiped." He leaned over and kissed the top of her head, something he'd grown to doing so frequently that Bella usually didn't notice it. But tonight it sent a wave of goose bumps down her spine. "Night Bells," he whispered, disappearing into his own room with silent footsteps.

* * *

Outside the storm screamed, and Bella felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. It had been howling like that for hours now, the tempest growing more and more to resemble a hungry animal. It swung wildly, pounding on the coast with generic rage, frustrated that the lines of tiny homes refused to surrender and be swallowed up into its maw.

Inside Bella was exhausted – physically, mentally, emotionally. Each one of her burning muscles begged for sleep…but sleep just wouldn't come. If her time here in Forks had helped Bella grow in any way, it was that she had developed the ability to sleep through anything, the pounding of the rain on the roof, the echoes of thunder from the storms battering the coast.

The threat of her own demise.

The loss of…of him.

True, there were nightmares, and the sleep was never peaceful, but Bella had found a way to manage. And tonight should have been no different – the same emptiness, the same loss, the same phantom pain lingering in her chest. But tonight i_was/i_ different, tonight was worse because the heartache was coupled by real aches, and her head was swirling with memories, images, movies that refused to be still, be silenced. Again and again she watched the last bubbles of air float away from her, leaving her silent and still. Again and again she heard the voice, full of rage and screaming at her to do what she knew she no longer had the strength for.

And again there were the hands. Jacob's too warm hands and they wrenched her from that blackness. Jacob's hands as they frantically beat the air back into her body. Jacob's hands and he held her on the beach, wet and freezing and covered in sand.

Jacob's hands…holding her together.

Too much. There was too much in her head, too much in her heart for her to process right now. She needed a break, she needed to breathe, she needed something.

Bella always needed something…only now she just didn't know what.

And in the meantime each flickering shadow against the wall was a face in the window, and each protesting creak and groan in the house was the approach of the enemy. It didn't matter that she was in La Push – there was no civility in creatures like Victoria, no agreement, no treaty. Rain be damned, Bella knew she was walking around with a bullseye on her chest and all she had managed to do in being here was shift it away from Charlie and onto Jacob.

Jacob.

It all happened so suddenly. She was on her feet and halfway down the hall before she contemplate even standing up. _I'm just going to check on him_ Bella told herself. She tiptoed down the hall, treading as if it were made of landmines rather than wood. The floor balked and creaked with every step, and she would freeze and hold her breath each time it did. Each stride felt harder than the one before it, like some invisible force was telling Bella to turn around, to go back.

To let go.

But her hands were on his doorframe, and she was peering into the darkness before she could --

"Bells?" Jacob called out suddenly, and Bella had to clutch at her chest to keep from having a heart attack. Lightning split the sky, and in the flash she could just make out his face in the dark, his eyes puzzled. "Everything okay?"

She felt his fingers reach out and wind around her wrist, and he guided her around his small bedside table to sit on the mattress. "You're not hurt, are you?" he asked

Bella wanted to ask him how she could possibly hurt herself sleeping, but then he'd make the joke about how if anyone could find a way to do it, she could, and her throat ached too much for her to bother when she already knew how the repertoire would end. She shook her head in the dark, certain that he could see.

"I just," she choked out, cleared her throat, and tried again. "I couldn't sleep," she whispered. Jacob didn't ask why. Either he already knew or he figured it was best not to pry. Instead he scooted over and thumped on the mattress.

"Lie down," he said. "I promise I'll keep the monsters at bay."

And so she did. They lay side by side awkwardly. Jacob took up more than half the bed, and so Bella had to teeter dangerously close to the edge of the mattress in order to maintain was seemed an appropriate gap between their two bodies.

Jacob coughed uncomfortably, the rain pummeled the roof loudly, and Bella sighed and began to wish that she'd never left the couch. Finally she felt a warm hand grab her around the waist and pull her away from her precarious perch.

"C'mere," Jacob said. "The last thing I want to have happen is for you to fall off the bed and fracture your skull in the middle of a hurricane."

"We have both had enough emergencies for one day," Bella agreed, hesitantly. She flipped over to face him, and laid her head on his shoulder. The rest of her body seemed to take the hint, and she melted around Jacob's contour. "This…this okay for you?"

"Mmmm," he affirmed, wrapping his long arms around her.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry Bella," he murmured, sleepily. "I haven't made this any easier on you. I tried, believe me, I tired so hard not to…not to feel the way I do about you. And I swear, I'm fine with just being your friend, it's just that I slip sometimes and…well, I know that you pick up on it and that doesn't make things any easier. So…so, yeah. I'm just…I'm trying, okay?"

Jacob was warm and his proximity was comforting and protective and Bella's limbs suddenly felt too heavy to move. And so she drifted into the welcoming embrace of sleep before she could tell him it was okay, she didn't mind that much anyways.

* * *

_She descended willingly into the blank expanse, into the black, the blue. Deeper and deeper until the world was nothing, and she was nothing in it. The cold crawled through her mouth, her nose. It froze in her ears and shattered in her eyes. Deeper and deeper, it descended into her lungs, pushing against the walls of her heart. Deeper and deeper into her mind. And yet she did not fight. _

_  
"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" Her fingers ceased their frenzied twitching, her eyelids froze mid-blink. "This is what you miss." _

_The voice was right, this was her ultimate desire, the frozen clutch of eternity, absent of sun or reprieve. _

_The hand latched onto her ankle, but there was no air left to scream with, no motion with which to turn away. His dead amber eyes stared back at her, for all eternity, as Edward pulled her down to the bottom of an endless sea._

"_Bella…"_

* * *

"BELLA!" Jacob shouted again,

He cradled her like a child, his hand moving in comforting circles against her back. He breathed reassurance into her ear. He brushed the hair back from her sweaty face.

He promised her everything would be alright.

"No, it won't be," she whispered bitterly, ignoring the obvious throbbing of her throat. "It will never be okay. It doesn't matter how hard I try, and it doesn't matter how much I want things to change. I am damaged goods, Jacob…and there's no rectifying that."

"Don't say that."

"It's the truth," she protested numbly, but it wasn't the full truth…and Bella knew that. She hadn't really wanted to get better. True, she had wanted the pain to stop, but in her mind the only way of achieving that had been for Edward to come back, or for her to wake up and realize the past few months had been just another cruel nightmare. And since both of those seemed highly unlikely, Bella had clung desperately to her own insanity, comforted only by voices that could not be real, addicted to the methadone now that her heroin was gone. She had traded sickness for sickness because she didn't remember how to be healthy. No, she told her father, told Jacob that she was trying, but that was a much as lie as anything else. In reality she was forbidden to remember, and yet still terrified to forget.

"Well just in case you haven't noticed, Bells, I'm pretty good at fixing things." Jake said, interrupting her thoughts as he pressed his warm hand against her cheek, holding her with more tenderness and compassion than she deserved.

"I've been hearing voices," she whispered bitterly. "Every time I do something dangerous, something irrational or unhealthy or stupid I hear _him_? Think you can fix that, Jake? Think you can take me apart like a carburetor and pull out the parts that are crazy? The bits and pieces that don't work right anymore?"

She tried to pull away, but Jacob continued to hold her against him. "Voices?" he asked skeptically.

Bella just nodded against his chest. "That's why I wanted to fix the motorcycles – because I knew that every time I got on one, I'd hear E - I'd hear _his_ voice again. Don't you think that kind of behavior indicates a problem that's far beyond repair?" Her voice was bitter, full of anger at herself, anger at Edward, anger at the world. But some part of her desperately needed Jake to disagree, because he was right – he was good at fixing things. Bella needed faith, needed someone to believe in something that she couldn't anymore. Jacob was so much more than a friend, he'd been her beacon in the dark, her sun in the middle of a monsoon, always there to show her the way when she couldn't make it on her own. If he believed…maybe it was actually possible. Maybe Bella Swan could be whole again.

But Jacob didn't respond with his usual hope, his optimistic outlook. His body seemed to droop against hers. "So…so the bikes…wanting to go cliff diving…it was just a stunt to pull so you could hear your ex-boyfriend's voice in your head?" he asked finally, his dejection palpable. His arms were suddenly stiff around her.

"Oh, Jake," Bella sputtered, wishing more than anything that she could pull the words out of the air and stuff them back in her mouth, along with her foot. "Oh, Jake no, I didn't mean…it's not like that…"

She reached out to touch his face, but he pulled away from her. "Tell me Bella?" he whispered throatily. "Was any part of it…did it…"

"Jake, it may have started out that way," she pleaded. "But it didn't end that way." When he still refused to meet her eyes Bella lurched out and caught his face between both her hands. "Jacob Black you listen to me right now!"

"Now" emerged as more of a throaty rasp than an actual word, and his face softened a little bit. "I came to you because I needed you to fix the bikes, but after that…everything changed. You're the best thing in my life, my best friend, and you know that's true so stop being a martyr…stop doing…this, when you know how very much you mean to me."

It took Bella by surprise how much her own words applied to herself. Stop. Stop playing the victim, prolonging her own pain – she was one to talk. Without warning she found herself thinking of her mother again. Renee had closed the door on her past. She hadn't waited, sitting around forlorn, staring out the window waiting for Prince Charming to drive up in a Volvo and rescue her from a trapped existence. She had ridden her own horse out of Forks instead, setting out to find her own happiness, rather than sitting home sabotaging herself.

Maybe that was true bravery – being strong enough to take that first step, being able to say enough's enough.

"Bella…"

"Shhhhh," she whispered, and placed a finger against his lips. For once Bella was glad she couldn't really speak that well. Her words were always empty, twisted paroxysms of the truth. Words hurt, words lied, and she was tired of both.

Jacob peered at her curiously through the darkness, but he didn't say a word as Bella moved one of her shaking hands down to rest against his chest. His heart beat like a drum beneath it. Then slowly, so slowly Bella closed the distance between them. Inch by inch she her face drew closer to his. Eyes wide, surprise spelled out all over Jacob's features, but he was silent. And his look of panic was the last thing Bella saw before breached that final gap and kissed him.

She braced herself, waiting for the onslaught of sorrow and betrayal to rip through her mind, to tear at the edges of the hole in her chest. But it never came. No voices, no pain. It was all blinded by a sudden warmth that seemed to radiate from Jacob as he sat there, unresponsive. Bella reeled back in surprise.

Through dark to her eyes, she was sure Jacob could see everything as clear as day, especially the frantic look in her eyes. The silence between them, usually so pleasant, was beginning to stretch into uncomfortable territory, and Bella longed for him to say something, do something. Anything!

Before Bella could gather the courage to bolt from the room though, the look of surprise on Jake's face vanished. Through the murky blackness his expression morphed into one of understanding and…and hope?

Bella leaned towards him again and this time he met her halfway. His lips moved slowly, hesitantly against her own, as if he wasn't quite sure what was happening, but was more than willing to try and figure it out. Again that delicious warmth flooded Bella's senses. It seemed to spread downward from her lips, coursing through her limbs, thawing parts of her that had been numb for far too long now. It burned down her spine and across her chest, and she felt a flush rise in her cheeks for the first time in a very, very long time.

They came up for air at the same time, gasping, faces inches apart in the darkness. The hesitation in Jacob's expression had been replaced by something different, something more animal, instinctual. It smoldered in his eyes as he pulled Bella's body up against his own. His hand gently ran up her neck to cup her cheek, tangle in her hair, and bring her face back against his own.

He kissed her with fervor, a reckless passion that Bella had never known, but it was infectious, and she found herself returning the enthusiasm. They crashed together, again and again, and when she felt Jacob's lips part her own she was more than willing to let him inside. Bella had never been able to try this before, to give into her desires without restraint or fear of consequence. But Jacob was willing and more than able – his body was playground that Bella was eager to explore.

And so she tasted the inside of his mouth. She nibbled his lower lip, and pulled him eagerly back when he started to move away. She let her hands wander the planes of his chest, his neck, his face. And she eagerly drank in his confident smile each time he broke away to catch his breath.

He never had it long before she took it away again.

And it didn't matter then that Bella was alone, or a mess of a human being, incomplete and adrift in a sea of lies and deceit and hopelessness. Because for a moment Bella was free, with only Jacob's arms to keep her from floating away. And so she kissed him back, and explored feelings that until that night had been locked away in the darkest recesses of her being. And when her energy was finally drained Bella laid her head down on his chest, where the echo of Jacob's heartbeat, and the feel of his hand combing through her tangled hair, lulled her to sleep.

* * *

Heat.

It was the first thing Bella's sleepy mind was able to register: a warmth that radiated throughout her entire body, despite the fact that there wasn't a blanket to be found. Blearily she opened her eyes, but the room was a fuzzy mess, still obfuscated by gloom despite the blinking of an unfamiliar clock which informed her it was 9:18.

It took a moment for her brain to catch up and make sense of where she was and what was happening. But eventually the previous night's memories came flooding back to her, and Bella felt her heart stutter. In response her chest gave a telltale throb, a weak echo of pain as though it had been hurting in the night, and Bella had blissfully slept through it. And what a blissful sleep it had been. For the first time in months Bella had not been torn from sleep by the sound of her own screaming, or the demons in her head. It was strange, and yet not.

Jacob's long body was curled around her own, holding her gently. She felt the tickle of his warm breath against the back of her head, each exhalation producing a steady, sleepy sigh. And his arm was snaked across her chest, right against the hole.

Even in his sleep Jacob had been holding her together.

Bella smiled sadly, because it was only a further reminder of the line she had crossed last night, and all that she stood to loose. The last time she'd woken up in someone's arms it…he… She shifted uncomfortably as the hole in her chest throbbed again, a fresh tear in an old wound. Blood beneath a scar.

Jacob must have felt it because he snorted suddenly and tightened his grip around her. "Bells?" he murmured softly.

Heat rose in Bella's cheeks that had nothing to do with last night's passion. Fresh tears welling up in her eyes, her only instinct was to run from the room. She tried to untangle herself from Jacob's limbs, to get free and disappear before he could see the hurt on her face and realize it had everything to do with Ed-- with _him_. But Jacob tightened her arms around her further, and burrowed his face in her hair.

"Please Bells," he pleaded, his voice thick with sleep. "I promise I understand – last night never happened. And we can get out of this bed and never talk about it again. Just please…give me one more minute right here…" Sadness, tangible enough to hold, was evident in his tone. Wiping the stray tears away with the heel of her hand Bella relaxed her tensed limbs, and leaned back into the curve of his body as the silent seconds ticked by, but something had changed.

Her heart was still pounding, each beat, each breath bringing fresh pain with it. Only now Bella wasn't sure if it was because last night had happened, or because Jacob wanted to pretend that it hadn't. And so she let him hold her as the LED second ticked by, and when 9:19 became 9:20 he softly kissed the top of her head, muttered something about needing to see the pack, and bound out the door before Bella's feet touched the ground.


	2. Revelations

The power surged once at exactly 10:03 before dying silently. Bella knew the time because she'd been staring at the clock, lying in the warm divot Jacob had left in the bed, since the moment he'd skipped out the door.

"Well, this is going swimmingly," Bella muttered to herself in the darkness. If not for the clock, she would never have guessed it was morning. No light filtered through the curtains, and the steady pounding of the rain on the roof continued with no signs of stopping. With a sigh she decided that she might as well get up and face the day, however awkward and rainy it was sure to be.

However, being stuck in the Black's house, in the middle of a hurricane, and with zero electricity only left Bella with so many forms of entertainment. Namely, snooping through Jake's room for illicit stuff, or housework. And while the prospect of digging up the dirt on Jake was growing ever more tempting, Bella decided that she really had no desire to find out if he had a _Playboy_ collection (he did), where it was (bottom dresser drawer below the socks), or what his preferred 'type' was (Babes of Motocross). Which left the house.

In Phoenix, Bella's domesticity had been a necessity – housekeeping wasn't in Renee's repertoire. In Forks it was somewhat less true. Charlie managed for himself all those years. But when she'd first moved to Washington cleaning had been a way to make the time pass, the homesickness fade. Then it became a way to make the hours in between _him_ fly by, make the separation, no matter how brief, that much easier. Now, it was just a way to keep her from dwelling on last night, and the conflicting battle taking place inside her. The war between the side that wanted to forget...and the one that desperately wanted to remember.

For once luck was on her side, albeit in a twisted way, for while on her search for a non-electrical task to do, Bella walked into the kitchen…and stepped into a puddle.

* * *

Two hours and one pack of matches later, Bella had all four burners on the (thankfully) gas stove going, cooking everything from Italian sausage, to spaghetti sauce, to…well basically anything in the Black's fridge and freezer that was perishable. She has no idea why it wasn't staying cold, but with the power off the entire appliance was becoming way too warm to be safe.

So Bella cooked. And stirred. And sautéed. And successfully blocked out all memories of the previous night…right up until back door flew open with impressive force, and Bella practically leapt out of her skin in shock.

"Sweet zombie Jesus!" Jake hollered, flying through the door and forcing it closed behind him. He stood dripping on the kitchen floor with a stupid grin on his face. "I don't want to alarm you Bella, but I think we're in for a storm."

"You think?" she gasped, her heart still trying to beat its way out of her chest. She leaned against the counter and tried not to have a coronary. "Don't move," she choked out. "I'll grab you a towel."

"Thanks," he shouted down the hall after her. "Hey, why are you running a restaurant out of my kitchen?"

"Because your fridge sucks, and I've seen the way you eat," she called, grabbing a whole stack out of towels out of the linen closet. "Billy can't afford to lose an entire fridge worth of food just because the power goes out!"

A huge crash suddenly reverberated down the hall. Bella tore back into the room only to find Jacob practically overturning the fridge, leaving a wet, muddy river in his wake.

"What did I tell you about standing still?" Bella demanded in exasperation.

Jacob grunted, as he wedged his large figure behind the fridge. "Whoever built this house had a bright idea to stick a heating duct back here. Whenever the power goes the thing gets hot as all blue blazes way…too…fast." The refrigerator jumped forward another foot as Jake gave one final heave. "That should help a little bit."

"One mystery down then," Bella chided playfully, handing him the towels. Jake's warm hand brushed against her own, and she flinched away from the contact unexpectedly.

Jake froze. "Bella…"

"Sorry," she murmured, feeling the color rising back into her cheek. It was instinctual, a reflex reaction to…to whatever they were now. "Just take 'em…"

She tried to force the stack into Jacob's unwilling hands but instead he pounced, sweeping both her and the laundry into his wet arms. "I am going to hug you until this awkwardness goes away," he informed Bella matter-of-factly.

She squirmed in his damp embrace. "Jake, oxygen!"

"A trivial detail!" he teased before setting her back down on her feet. "There, are we cool?"

"We were always cool," Bella murmured softly, gazing up at him shyly. "Now we're both just cool and…drippy." She shoved the pile of towels into his chest. "So dry off, then come in here and empty out the freezer while I finish up. It's either that, or we're eating ramen until the storm breaks."

"Aye aye, Ma'am!" he gave her a mock salute. "Your voice sounds loads better, by the way. You quit smoking or something?"

"Shut up."

* * *

Jake's extra set of hands was both a blessing and a curse. Before Bella could even pull her spaghetti sauce off the stove, he'd assembled a mess of candles and flashlights from niches all over the house, lit a fire in the living room hearth, and unearthed an old fishing cooler, which we was currently emptying the freezer contents into. He was chatty and goofy and a fun to have around. He was just…Jake.

Unfortunately his presence was making it hard for Bella to do what he'd asked of her. The more she tried to draw a veil over the previous night's events, the more she found herself dwelling them. When he reached out to pinch her as he walked by, all she could do was remember the way his hands had felt when he touched her in a very different way. He smiled, and she remembered feeling that same smile cross his face while he kissed her.

It was becoming distracting.

"...And it took Billy a full twenty minutes to cut the bucket off my head with a pair of garden shears. Alright, your turn Bells."

"Huh?" she shook her head, reemerging from her own little world.

"I told you a stupid story about my childhood," Jake said. "As requested. So ante up, I need blackmail on you now."

"Um…okay," she struggled to draw up a memory worth talking about, and was suddenly struck with an idea, a savage impulse. "When I was little I went to this sleepover at Becky Martin's house, and instead of truth or dare the girls played this game called brutal honesty," Bella explained, chopping peppers in a way that made Jacob exceptionally nervous.

"That sounds uplifting," he murmured. "This better get more interesting as the story goes on. Did you guys practice kissing on each other or something?"

Bella threw a wadded up napkin at him. "No, now shush. The rules of the game were that you were paired up with another person, and they to ask you any question they wanted to and you had to give an honest answer. The rub was you got to ask them one back, and neither of you was allowed to get mad based on the other one's response."

Jake snickered. "Yeah, sounds like the perfect game for a bunch of catty girls to play. I'm sure no one ever got their feelings hurt doing that…" His head emerged from the freezer, wearing an expression of sudden puzzlement. "So I know I'm going to regret asking this Bells, but why are you telling me this exactly?"

"Because," she started, taking a deep breath to steady her nerves. "I need to ask you a brutally honest question."

"You don't need to play any stupid game to do that, just ask away." His voice was confident, teasing. But his pallor seemed more ashen that usual. If it were possible for Jake to be pale, he was.

No amount of deep breathing was going to calm Bella's nerves, though she didn't understand why she was so jittery. She tried to take a sip of her tea, but the cup shook so badly that she set it back on the table before Jacob could notice. "Okay," she finally relented. "What did you mean…last night, when you said that you tried not to…care about me?"

This was clearly not the question Jake had been expecting, and he shut the freezer door and plopped down into the chair next to her, staring at her curiously.

"Why do you ask?" he wondered, reaching across to take her hand. But it was still trembling, so Bella jerked it out of reach and busied herself cutting the core out of another pepper.

"That's not how the game works, Jake. You have to answer my question first."

"Fine," he relented softly, but the worried lines in his forehead remained. "I meant that I know you're sad a lot. I know that you don't do 'love', not anymore at least. I know that you're broken and lonely and stuff. I knew that the minute you pulled into my driveway."

Bella remembered that day with exquisite clarity.

"And I…" he chuckled softly. "I already had a little crush on you, but I'm sure you knew that."

"Yeah, just a little bit."

"But you…you just looked so sad that day, and I knew you needed a friend and I just wanted to do that," he said, throwing his hands up in mock helplessness. "I wanted to be what you needed me to be. And despite the fact that you were miserable you were good company. I liked having someone there to talk to, and you seemed to like just having someone around. And so I tried to be good. I told myself you were off limits, tried to look at you through those 'just one of the guys' goggles…" His voice trailed off.

"But…" Bella prompted. She'd long since given up focusing on the food.

Jake looked at her with a soft, sad expression. "But…I don't know. Every once in a while you'd look at me while we were driving, or working on the bikes, or doing homework, and you'd shoot me this little smile and…and I just loved it so damn much."

He reached for her hand again, and this time Bella let him take it. He gave it a tight squeeze. "I loved being the reason you smiled, and I loved being the reason you laughed, and I loved being the reason you looked…happy again. And all of that just built up and accumulated until I realized I was just in love with you, period. All of you, every breath, every emotion, happy or sad and everything in between – I loved you."

"But I knew you didn't need a lover, and knowing would just make it hard for you because even if you didn't love me, you certainly liked me. And saying 'no' to someone you like is hard enough on your best days, so I kept it to myself."

"Not very well," Bella muttered, staring down at her lap. Jake squeezed her hand again.

"I'm not perfect," he said defensively. I slipped sometimes. Like around that Mike kid…it was hard not to." His voice took on a rueful quality, and Bella knew that he was remembering that night the same way she was. It was their last night together as normal, average, _human_ teenagers. "But I tried."

Bella didn't know what to say to that. Jacob has just confessed his love for her, but those words were essentially meaningless – she'd already known, they both had. His love had been in the bikes, the road trips, the spaghetti dinners, his warm smiles and bear hugs. It was in his laugh and his touch.

It was in the way he follow her over a cliff without so much as blinking.

And yet…still something inside Bella throbbed emptily. Jake had given her, _was giving her_ everything, and it was still not enough.

"I know you did," Bella whispered, still unwilling to look at him until Jake stuck a finger under her chin and forced her face upwards. His smile was sad, but very understanding.

"I don't want anything from you, Bella," he told her softly. "I promise, I'm happy to just be your friend. I'll keep trying not to love you, it's just hard," his voice was teasing now. "I mean, clearly you're just irresistible."

"Must be the clothes," Bella tried to tease back, but she couldn't hide the sadness in her voice. "I hear the guys really go for the hand-me-down look."

He saw right through her lame attempt at a joke though, and Jacob refused to be deterred from making her feel better. "I mean it, Bells, so stop worrying about it. Last night was an accident, its okay, we all get lonely. I'm just…I want you to know I'm here for you, okay? You can always talk to me. Just…know that above all else, okay?"

"I…" Bella tried to respond, but she was back under the water, unable to breathe, unable to speak. She shook her head and tried to find the words. "Thanks. For everything."

Jake pushed the hair back from her face, and his fingers lingered warmly against her cheek before he took his hand away. "No worries. So," he clapped his hands together brightly. "Shall we try to prepare our feast? I'm starving."

"Sure," Bella agreed, plastering an all too fake smile on her face. The conversation should have made her feel better. After all, Jacob had told her exactly what she wanted to hear: he cared for her, but he understood that she couldn't reciprocate.

But if that was what she wanted to hear then why was the hole, that gaping wound in her chest, aching again? And why did it seem to hurt for Jake this time? And why, each time he mentioned forgetting the previous night, did Bella have to bite her tongue to keep from telling him that she didn't want to forget, that she wanted it to mean something more than just a lonely accident?

She buried the confusion in her work, going back to the stove and stirring in silence until Bella remembered something.

"Now you get to ask one," Bella said.

"Do I have to?" He poked a package of what appeared to be frozen fish, and they squished beneath his finger.

"Yes," Bella assured him. "That's the only way to make sure it's fair."

Jake just rolled his eyes. "Fine. Did you come into my room last night because you were…you know?"

"Know what?"

"_You know_..." Jake said again, as if the emphasis would clarify something. Bella just continued to stare at him blankly. "Because you were…looking to…get some?" he finally blurted out.

Bella choked on her mouthful of tea, angrily trying to will her blood to flow anywhere but her face. An utterly futile attempt - she turned bright red as she glowered at Jake from over her cup. "No," she muttered firmly. "But thanks for implying that I'm a common hussy."

"Okay, one: I wasn't implying anything, I just asked a question. Two: I thought the whole point of this game was that you weren't allowed to get mad at me. And three: who says 'hussy' anymore? You sound like my grandmother…"

"I say 'hussy' you jerk," Bella shot back. "That better?"

"Okay, okay, I withdraw the question," Jake said, throwing his hands up in mock surrender and biting back his laughter. Bella tried her best to look more intimidating, but it wasn't working, and he only chuckled more. "I didn't mean to push your buttons, sheesh. I just assumed--"

"Assumed what?"

"Well, I…what I meant was…well I saw the pills in your purse when we went through that drive thru and you asked me to hand you your wallet and…I…well, I just figured and…this game sucks," he finally stuttered. But Bella wasn't done being mortified.

"Well you know what they say when--"

"Yes, I've made as ass out of myself," Jake interrupted. "Go me. Look, I'm a guy. We see little round pill boxes, our thoughts naturally drift to sex. Hell, we see lug wrenches and our thoughts naturally drift to sex – it can't be avoided. And again, aren't you not allowed to be mad at me?"

Bella glared down at her tea, since glaring at Jacob was not producing the desired effect. "I have really bad acne, okay," she finally admitted, huffily. "It's a touchy subject."

"What are you talking about?" Jake asked, tossing some quickly thawing steaks into his makeshift cooler. "You don't have a spot on you."

"Exactly," she retorted.

Jake suddenly paused, mid-throw with another frozen mystery package. "So…not to stick my head in the lion's mouth of anything but…does that mean you've…never?"

"Not that it's any of your business," Bella muttered. "But no."

"Oh. Okay. Um, okay."

Bella sighed, and fought the urge to bang her head on the table a few times. But knowing her luck it would splinter beneath her, and she'd impale herself through the eye on a wooden skewer, so she decided against it. "Any more personal issues you'd like to delve into, Jake? Want the results of my last pap smear?"

"Nope, I'm done," he chirped, seemingly unperturbed. "I still say this game bites though. And you cheat at it."

"Sucks to be you then," Bella said, but the sarcasm was fading from her voice.

"Yeah, no kidding," he shot back. He flashed her a toothy grin, but Bella couldn't quite tell if he was being serious of not.

* * *

Night came quickly with no power. They gorged on the myriad of food that Bella cooked. What Jacob didn't manage to choke down joined the rest of the salvaged packages in the fishing cooler. Jake and Billy would have to live on leftovers for a while, but the way Jake wolfed down her food, she didn't anticipate that being a problem.

They indulged in increasingly competitive games of Scrabble by candlelight, while Jake regaled her with tales of pack hijinks that Quil and Embry would probably have preferred he not share, and managed to hit a triple word score by spelling "clitoris" correctly. They danced around the subject of sleep, with Bella finally admitting she was tired when the letter tiles in front of her would no longer come into focus.

Jake threw another log on the fire. "Just so you stay warm."

"And to keep the shadows away," Bella replied, absently fluffing the pillows on the couch.

"Exactly." He leaned over, and Bella's heart skipped a rebellious beat before Jake planted a kiss on the top of her head. "Sleep tight, Bells. I'm going to jump in the shower, so don't panic if you hear me walking around."

Bella didn't lay down until she heard the door lock and the water pipes creak to life. She had a feeling Jake was going to stay in the shower until she was fast asleep. She pulled the blanket up tight under her chin, and clutched a stray pillow to her chest.

It was going to be a long night…

* * *

Minutes, hours. Bella had no idea how long she laid there, staring into the fire…

"Still can't sleep?" Jake appeared at the foot of the couch, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and drying his damp hair with a towel.

"Story of my life?" Bella responded sadly, rolling over to look at him. "What's your excuse?"

"I just came in here to dry off," he replied. "Figured you might still be awake." He slid the coffee table out of the way and collapsed on the floor in front of the couch. He was so long that his feet reached the hearth of the fireplace, which was apparently the point.

"Sure, sure," Bella replied snidely. "Admit it, you were afraid weren't you?"

Jake grinned and leaned his head back against the couch cushions, so he could look at her upside down. "You caught me, I'm terrified of the dark. Hold me, Bella!"

She poked him in the head good-naturedly, but the atmosphere had suddenly changed. Jake's words hit too close to home for both of them.

"Bella…I can't believe I'm doing this…" he muttered.

She toyed with his damp hair. "Doing what?" she asked, teasing.

He continued to stare pointedly into the fire. "I need to ask you a brutally honest question," he said finally, and something in his voice made Bella's heart clench.

"Okay," she answered hesitantly. "Fire away."

"Why?" he seemed to ask the flames in front of them. "Why did you really come into my room last night?

Bella's hands froze, her throat constricting in a way that had nothing to do with her still recuperating voice. Jake turned to look at her when she didn't respond. "I don't know," she finally admitted lamely.

"Cheater," Jacob hissed lightly. "C'mon Bella, you must have had a reason. Please, just tell me."

"I really don't know, Jake." Memories from the previous evening filtered back into her head, through the wall she had put up to contain them. But now she was standing in the hallway again, peering into the dark abyss of his room, looking for…something.

Wanting something.

"I think…" she said finally, and the words felt thick in her mouth, heavy with significance. "I think I wanted to know what if felt like to be you." Jake stared at her, puzzled but afraid to interrupt. "I wanted to try to look at you…at us…and see what you see. Feel what you feel…I guess. Kinda stupid, huh?"

"I don't think so," Jake said softly. "What you tried to see…did you?"

Bella's eyes slid off his face, and she gazed into the flickering flames behind him. "I don't know," she said again. Another half-truth. The answer was there, buried in a dark recess she dare not face, a gaping hole that echoed with voices and memories she longed to run from, and so Bella pulled a sheet over it, clinging to her answer which was anything but.

"Cheater," Jake accused her again, but his voice was gentle.

"Hey, you're only entitled to one question, which I answered," Bella reminded him. "And speaking of rules, isn't it my turn to ask a question now?"

"Shoot," Jacob said, and he leaned back into her touch as she continued to run her fingers through is damp hair.

"Why did you really come in here just now?" The words were past Bella lips before she could stop to think about their consequences.

Jake's eyes slowly opened, and he turned to look at her over his shoulder. The orange firelight played across his features, illuminating the tension in his face. "I…" He seemed unable to get the words out.

But before Bella could offer him any encouragement he reached for her face, and a second later his lips were crashing against her own. His touch was fast, his fingers trembling against her skin. It was a kiss of desperation, and it ended before Bella could really grasp that it was happening.

When she opened her eyes his face was hovering inches from her own. "That's why I came in here, Bells," he whispered. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I know I promised--"

He paused as Bella's hand reached out and brushed his cheek in the darkness. He leaned into her touch as she traced the curve of his jaw, the lines that seemed permanently etched into his forehead, the bridge of his nose, the edge of his lips. His face in the firelight was captivating, the warmth of his skin inviting her hands to stay.

"Jake..." she breathed him in.

"I know I said I wouldn't, but I couldn't stop thinking about last night." he confessed in a rush, as if Bella touch was drawing the truth out of him. "About how your lips and your hands and…I walked to Emily's and back in the rain just so I could keep those memories to myself for a little while longer but…"

Bella's hands smoothed his forehead. "But what?"

"I'm greedy," he confessed. "I…I just wanted one more."

Bella's heart pounded thunderously against her ribcage, her pulse echoing in her ears. Her fingers ran back into his hair, and before she knew it was happening she tightened her grip and pulled his lips back into her own. They scrambled, a tangle of limbs as Jacob climbed onto the couch with her, not once breaking their kiss. He crouched over her, his hands combing her hair and tracing her arms and brushing the exposed flesh of her stomach and then returning to lightly touching her face again and again and again.

And Bella didn't stop him.

She didn't want him to stop. She was a vampire this time, stealing his heat, the fire that bled into her limbs each time he touched her. The voice of protest shouted in the back of her head, reminding her to be broken and bruised and lonely, but the sounds was muffled by the bass of her heart pounding in her ears, and the fire ate away at it until the words dissolved into blissful nothingness. Jake didn't stop to contemplate his good fortune, he just continued to kiss her in exultation.

And Bella didn't stop him.

He broke from her suddenly, breathing hard. "Don't st--" Bella started to plead with him, but her fears were unwarranted. Jake was far from done.

And so she smoldered, but it had nothing to do with their proximity to the fireplace, and everything to do with the way Jake's lips brushed her ear, finally landing on her neck. He moved inch by inch, kissing her slowly, deliberately – exploring every secret her body had to offer. And when she felt his tongue graze against her skin Bella shuddered and clutched at his back reflexively.

But her response only made Jacob bolder, as he nipped at collarbone, tracing its contour across her chest, and back up to the other side. He paused below her jaw, his tongue drawing tight circles and tracing invisible shapes.

"Jake," Bella moaned, as each touch, each caress burned her up from within.

His lips brushed against her ear once more. "Say it again Bells," he whispered throatily. Beneath her shirt his hand brushed the bottom of her ribcage, and climbed onward.

"Jake," she breathed again, arching into his touch.

He shuddered against her. "I love the way you say that," he confessed. "Just for me…" Bella turned her head and captured his mouth against her own. She pulled him against her with all her strength, but it still wasn't enough. She wanted…more…something that Jacob had to give. It was involuntary, instinctual, the way that her body seemed to respond to his subtle cues, his softest caresses.

"Just for you," Bella agreed when they broke apart.

Jacob's face was a dichotomy, half hidden in shadow, half bathed in orange light, but every inch of it seemed to radiate triumph. With a devilish grin he suddenly wrenched them both upwards, sitting up and straddling Bella across his lap as if she weighed nothing at all.

His hands grazed her stomach, toying with the edge of her shirt. And when he pulled back there was something in his eyes that was very human. It was the looked of a 16 year old boy, and he was asking her permission.

That very human part of Bella was equally nervous, and her own expression clearly crying: _I'm scared, but I want you to so badly._

And so slowly Jake gripped the bottom of her tank top, and slowly he peeled it up, exposing new flesh bit by bit, until, with the swiftness of ripping off and band-aid he yanked it over her upraised arms.

Bella squinched her eyes shut, dropping her head and rolling her shoulders, as if she could fold in on herself and cover her exposed chest.

"Don't," Jake whispered, a warm hand guiding her face upwards. "Don't do that, Bells. You never have to do that, not in front of me." More gentle hands pulled her arms back down to her sides, straightened her back so that she was facing him.

Bella opened one eye cautiously, fighting the insecurities that threatened to overtake her with such ease. Jake smiled, then chuckled, then laughed at her outright, his face happy and his eyes still smoldering.

Warm hands gripped her hips, then traced up the expanse of her back and down again, exploring her skin. "You never have to be embarrassed in front of me," he assured her again, and Bella tired to give him a shaky smile. He pulled her in close, gently crushing her body against his own in a tell-tale hug. Bella shivered as his lips brushed lightly against her cheek, then her ear. "Do you have any idea how beautiful you really are?"

Color crept into Bella's cheeks, but this time it wasn't from embarrassment. Jake pulled back from her gently, and ever so slowly his hand tickled up her stomach, higher, playing against every one of her ribs, and higher still as he circled her breast.

"Jake…" she breathed again, a subtle plea that translated into more…more.

His thumb brushed against her nipple, and it hardened at his touch. Bella bit back the moan that tried to claw out of her mouth as Jacob did it again, squeezing the sensitive bud between his fingers. A tingle shot through her nerves, a pleasurable wave that overtook her senses. Her insecurities evaporated against his searing skin, leaving nothing but desire in their wake.

And Jacob did his best to slake those desires.

Bella moaned aloud when Jake's mouth found her other breast, her hands tangling in his hair. He flicked her nipple with his tongue, kissing and nibbling lightly, again and again and again.

It was too much. Bella arched her back, anything to bring her closer to him. Her breaths were coming in short gasps, murmuring incoherent sounds, each one seeming to encourage Jacob more and more. She shifted in his lap, and for the first time Bella realized that she wasn't the only one enjoying the experience. She leaned in surreptitiously, grinding her hips against Jake's, and the bulge in his shorts. He froze and she did it again.

"Bella," he moaned into her chest, his hands clutching at her. The way he said her name sounded good in her ear. The fact that she was making him feel good, that what she was doing was making him want her even more…it made Bella feel powerful…confident. She tried to do it again, wiggling her hips in what she hoped was a seductive manner, but Jake caught her and held her fast. The animal in his eyes had softened and he looked…abashed?

Ashamed.

"Don't," Bella whispered, leaning into him closer. "You never have to be embarrassed in front of me."

She ground against him defiantly, and this time he didn't stop her. Bella freed her hands from his, and wrapped Jacob up in her arms. Gently she pulled her nails across his back, and felt the goose-bumps rise on his shoulders. His skin was salty and warm against her lips, as she pressed them against his neck. He writhed beneath her, and it urged Bella onward.

"I like making you feel good too," she murmured.

He tangled his hands in her hair. "Everything you do feels good," he said breathlessly.

"Good."

Her hands traced paths up and down his chest, across the taught muscles in his arms, his stomach. Jake's transformation had affected his body drastically. He was no longer the willowy boy he had once been. He was built like a track runner – long and lean, but with the hidden bulk of subtle muscle. She traced the lines with her fingers, following with her lips.

"Bells…" he moaned again, as she flicked her tongue against the hollow at the base of his throat. For a second she was worried he was going to tell her to stop, but Bella didn't care anymore – there was nothing in her head that wasn't her body intertwined with Jacob's. He was in her mind and her eyes and her mouth, dominating senses she didn't even know she had. The throaty way he repeated her name again and again lay heavy in her ears. She had stolen his fire and now it smoldered in her core, heat creeping through every inch of her veins. She throbbed for him, somewhere deep inside, a tingle that ran down from her stomach, and touched that place between her legs.

Before she knew what she was doing, Bella's hands were toying with the hem of Jake's shorts, slipping beneath the seam, playing with the button. She didn't know where the boldness was coming from, all she knew was she wanted more – more heat, more touch.

More Jake.

She reached for his zipper.

"Bells." He caught her wrists. "Bella, stop…please," he said breathlessly, his eyes pleading with hers in the dim light. "If you don't stop now I won't be able to…"

"What if I don't want you to stop?" she whispered.

"Then you might hate me in the morning," he muttered sadly. Reluctantly, she surrendered her grip on his shorts, but only so she could hold his face.

"I…could never hate you," she murmured. And he smiled faintly in response before leaning in to kiss her. It was fleeting and gentle, the madness of passion fading, leaving them both drained. The fire was dying.

"I should go," Jake finally said, and he tried to pick Bella up but she clung to him tightly.

"Stay."

He tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear and sighed. "If that's what you want…"

It took some shuffling – Jacob was really too long for the couch. He propped his knees against one armrest, laid his head on the other, then pulled Bella on top of him. His arms wrapped around her tightly, as if he was afraid she would run away in the night, disappearing somehow. Behind them the fire faded into blackness, but it didn't matter, because Bella was happy…for the first time in too long a time.

So why couldn't she shake the feeling that something was wrong?

It didn't matter. Jake's chest rose and fell steadily beneath her, warm skin pressed against warm skin. There was no need for blankets, no need for explanations or words. There would be plenty of time for that tomorrow. But tonight there was just Jake and Bells, wrapped up in their own little world, in the eye of the hungry storm.


	3. Reconciliation

**Brrrrrrr!**

Bella tried to find her alarm. Just one more snooze. Five more minutes.

**Brrrrrrr****!**

She slapped her nightstand again. Why wouldn't it shut off?

**Brrrrrrr****!**

She just wanted to sleep a bit longer. The smoke was making her sleepy.

**Brrrrrrr****!**

Smoke?

Bella bolted awake. One too many encounters with Charlie's (attempted) cooking had left her far too sensitive to the smell. She threw the off the blanket and bolted from the couch, trying to clear the haze that was obscuring her brain at the same time.

"Jake?" she called out, remembering that she was at the Black's home and not her own.

"In here!" he shouted back, over the alarm. Bella ran into the kitchen and almost collided with his chest. He was standing by the doorway with a screwdriver, trying in vain to pull the fire alarm from the ceiling.

"What happened?!"

"WHAT?"

Bella sighed and grabbed a baking sheet off a pile sitting by the stove, where a charred mass of what appeared to be pancakes sat smoldering on the griddle. "Move!" she ordered Jacob, who for all of his mechanical skill seemed unable to get the alarm to part with the ceiling. Frantically she beat the air with the tray, until finally the ringing ceased.

At least, it ceased in the kitchen. Her ears were still buzzing, and it wasn't helping her shake off her morning confusion any faster. "Okay," she tried again. "What happened?"

Jake shrugged. "Breakfast in bed…I mean couch?" he offered up with a weak smile. "I was trying to make pancakes, but I had to use water instead of milk because we had to toss the milk out yesterday. But they got all goopy and cooked really fast, and I just turned around to find those nice plates my sisters have stashed around here and when I turned back…" He just shrugged again and gestured helplessly at the stove.

"Well, at least that's one way to get going in the morning," Bella muttered, her blood pressure returning to normal now that she was certain the house wasn't burning down on top of them.

"I'll bet," he agreed. "Sorry to wake you up in such a state of…undress."

"What are you talking ab--" Bella started to say, but stopped short because that was the moment she realized she wasn't wearing a shirt.

Jake could barely contain his laughter as Bella tried in vain to conceal herself with the baking sheet, the color rushing to her face.

"What?" he protested when she shot him a dirty look. "It's not like it's nothing I haven't seen before."

Bella suddenly felt like she couldn't breathe. She tore out of the kitchen and down the hall, pan still in hand, and barricaded herself in the bathroom. A second later she heard Jacob's hands connect with the wood as he skidded into the locked door.

"C'mon, Bells," he pleaded gently. "Whatever I did, I'm sorry…"

Bella slumped down onto the edge of the bathtub in defeat, the previous night's activities rushing back with surprising clarity. She remembered everything in high definition: the touch of his skin, the warmth of his breath, the frantic throbbing of her heart, the frantic throbbing of…other things.

And it was too much.

Much too much too much.

* * *

Bella stared out the screen door, ignoring the spray on her face as the rain pounded past the eves. Through the ever-falling sheets of gray she could just make out the silhouette of her truck. It was twenty-five, maybe thirty feet from the house. If she ran, and somehow managed to avoid tripping, falling, or the breaking of any limbs, she could be sitting in the cab in a matter of seconds.

And from there it was just a quick fifteen minutes back to Forks.

Back to her house.

Back to her life.

Back to where things made sense.

Back to where Bella was broken and Jake was her friend.

The Black house had become Bella's refuge over the past months. Filled with memories completely unrelated to what she had lost, filled with people who brought out the best in her. But now it was too small. Her emotions steamed off her, hanging in a thick cloud about her head. And over the past two days they'd been collecting into a permanent haze – a fog she could neither break free from nor see a way through.

She couldn't breathe anymore.

She had to GET OUT!

Her hand hovered over the doorknob.

"Bells…" Jacob's hand hovered lightly over her own. She hadn't even heard him approach. He was practically a ghost in his own right.

Bella was haunted wherever she went now.

"Bells, Please," he said again. He finally worked up the nerve to touch her, and pulled her arm away from the knob. "Whatever you're feeling right now…that's fine, but I promised Charlie I'd keep you safe."

"It's not that far…" But the excuse tasted weak on her tongue.

"Says the girl who was raised in Phoenix." Jake pulled her away from the door, and gently spun her around to face him. "But I've lived here all my life and I can tell you that every road between here and Forks is under about three feet of water right now."

"My truck--"

"Is a fine piece of American engineering," he interrupted. "But it's also not a submarine. Please," he pleaded with her, a note of desperation in him voice.

Bella felt her own will beginning to crack. "I…can't stay here, Jake."

"Yeah," he said. "You can…and it's not like you really have a choice," he joked lamely. "We both know you can't really swim that well."

"I'm not kidding."

"Neither am I." His voice was serious again as his gaze slipped off her face and disappeared somewhere outside, somewhere far away. "I'm gonna leave for a while, go run a patrol, do some thinking, take care of some business, give you some space…"

"But--"

"You can sleep in my bed tonight," he muttered sadly, managing to look her in the eye once more, but only briefly. "Alone," he added, sensing that Bella was about to protest. "You can close the door and lock it – keep me out, keep yourself in, whatever you want."

"But what about you?" Bella croaked out softly. Jake flashed her a tragic replica of his usual smile, and squeezed her hand. It was strange – she hadn't even been aware he was still holding it. Like the same way you don't notice your heartbeat, or breathing.

It just happened.

"There's a perfectly good couch in the living room. Or I'll crash on the old man's bed. Don't worry about me, Bells," he said, and his fingers slipped out of her grasp. "I'll manage. I always do."

One final, sad smile was all Bella saw before he darted out the door and disappeared into the wall of water. Seconds later a russet blur shot across the grass, bound for the woods.

And just like that, she was alone.

* * *

She barricaded herself in what remained of Rachel and Rebecca's room, closing the door against the spirits that haunted the rest of the house. The bunk beds had been sold, replaced by a set of worn free weights belonging to Jake, and a long table covered in bits and pieces that Billy somehow assembled into home made fishing lures and whatnot. But all essences of female habitation had not yet been purged from the room. Faded floral wallpaper, curling and sun bleached in places, still clung stubbornly to the walls. And two white dressers stood in opposite corners, their abandoned contents peeking out of half opened drawers.

Even though Bella knew they had been the source of her clothing for the past two days, she still felt like a trespasser here. She closed the drawers, slipping old shirts and cut off jeans back inside. Her haggard expression taunted her from the reflection in the chipped but matching vanity mirror.

_Coward_, it seemed to say accusingly.

"You don't understand," Bella muttered back. "It's different with Jake…" The words even sounded empty, weak.

_Pathetic_, her reflection now declared. Hollow eyes returned her glare. They told her what she already knew to be true: the situation was out of control.

She and Jake had danced their twisted dance for so long, pretending their relationship was something else. But the subtle glances and his gentle touches and the secret smiles they shared had all been leading up to this moment, these few tender days. A snowflake had become an avalanche. They had reached the do-or-die moment.

All that Bella had to do to claim Jacob as her own was take that final leap…and she just couldn't.

_He loves you_, the mirror declared. _You jumped for the memory of Edward, but you won't jump for the boy who loves you._

_Coward._

Bella grabbed a sheet out of the closet and threw it over the mirror. Even her reflection loved Jacob.

So why couldn't she?

* * *

She locked the bedroom door when Jacob returned several hours later. His footsteps paused in the kitchen, evidently to pick up the towels she'd left waiting for him.

But even Bella couldn't hide forever. The paltry gray daylight, whatever managed to sneak through the cloud cover, was already beginning to dim. Soon it would be too black to see, and she hadn't had the foresight to grab a flashlight. Besides, the remnants of a thousand Mad Libs lay at her feet, and she wasn't looking forward to the prospect of a thousand more. Tired and starving and with the sheet-covered mirror beginning to give her the creeps in the dark, she worked up the nerve to make a run for the kitchen. Bella slowly opened the door…

…Where she rammed straight into Jake, standing stupidly with his hand raised, trying to muster the courage to knock. He regained his composure quickly enough, and caught Bella as she ricocheted off his chest.

"We've got to stop running into each other like this," he said, feigning calm, but there was a terseness in him that his voice betrayed.

"Sorry." Bella's temporary bravery seemed to have fled. She dropped her eyes and tried in vain to sidle around him down the hall, but he tightened the grip on her elbow.

"Bells, wait," he pleaded. "Talk to me. Tell what I did wrong so I can fix this." He sounded plaintive, like a kicked puppy. The metaphor seemed apt, and his apology, unwarranted.

"Nothing Jake," she replied coldly. "You didn't do anything wrong."

Bella wanted to flee down the hall and out of his grasp, but she knew he wasn't going to let her off that easy. It was only fair.

"Then why are you treating me like this?"

"Because…it's complicated," Bella said weakly. "But…it's nothing you did. This is all me. So just, let it go, okay?" At least it was partly true. Bella jerked away and made it a few steps down the hall before Jacob caught up with her again, and pulled her into the doorway of his bedroom.

"I'm sorry Bells," he said. "But I can't let it go, and it's not just you this time. You made me a part of this when you strolled back into my life, when you…when we… so talk to me." Bella pulled away, but he held her fast and moved so that she had to face him. "Talk to me," he demanded again.

Confrontation – it was never Bella's strong suit. "Why would I talk to you about it Jake," she muttered dejectedly. "You're like a dog with a bone when it comes to me. You never take the hint. You just never get it."

"No, I don't get it," Jake shot back. "So please, enlighten me Bella - it's only okay to love me in the dark, is that it? Cause I gotta say, you can't blame this entirely on me. It takes two to tango. So what, it's only alright when you can claim it's an accident and deny it happened the next day? Is that how it is?"

"No," she protested weakly. Bella was a child all over again, being chastised by her mother for something she already felt guilty about.

"No? Then what is it, Bells?" he demanded harshly. "Why can't you stop thinking and just _be with me_?"

Jacob really did know Bella inside and out – he'd even managed to vocalize the single most pertinent question that she'd been trying to answer for days.

But there was no easy answer.

"Because," Bella murmured softly, shattering the heavy silence. "Because…it's wrong."

Jacob's face fell. No, it plummeted, dropping like a stone, or the feet of a wall street businessman as he took a swan dive off the 51st story, or her, plunging over a cliff and into the sea. It was worse than anger, worse than tears, worse than anything Bella could ever have pictured. And for the first time since _he_ had left, she now understood how she looked to other people.

It was the same way that Jacob was looking at her now.

He drifted deeper into the cave of him room and sat down hard on the edge of his bed, slumped and broken.

"Okay…" he muttered, staring down at his lap. "Okay then."

"No," Bella said quickly. "No, Jake that's not what I meant. What I meant was--"

"No Bella, it's exactly what you meant." His voice was hollow and empty. "I just wish you'd figured it out a little sooner…"

She moved to stand beside him, reached for him, but he shrugged off her touch. "Jake, what I meant was that it feels wrong, like…like a betrayal. It feels like I'm betraying someone…when I'm…with…you." Putting it that way didn't sound any better. The words were burning a hole through her too, it seemed. Another half truth. Maybe that had been the reality of the situation once, before. But now…

Something had changed. And Bella didn't have the words to explain it.

"Funny, and yet I'm the one who's still here," Jake hissed finally, his whisper harsh, but the emotion was gathering in his voice again. He laughed bitterly, and it echoed like a bark in the tiny room. "You can't betray someone who's gone, Bella."

"You don't understand--"

"No Bella, _you_ don't understand. You're the only one who doesn't fucking understand. Edward is gone, Bella! He left you, and he's not coming back!"

The words bit into her mind, his name sending her reeling. But Jacob wasn't pulling punches this time around.

"He left you, but I'm here, Bells!" He grabbed her wrist, forcing her hand over his heart so that she felt every beat. "I'm here and I'm willing and I'm waiting, but _you _have to make up your mind first. You can sit here, broken and wallowing and empty for the rest of your life, waiting for someone who's never coming back…or you can move on. But the choice is yours Bella, and the damn day of reckoning is upon us. I'm sitting right here."

Beneath her fingertips Jacob's heart began to pound. Her's was doing the same. The room around her seemed to jump and twitch with each beat, and she couldn't get it to stop, to settle. Her mind mirrored the actions, leaping violently between options, futures, wants, needs, desires. When it felt like she knew what she was doing that old war wound, that shooting pain each time she breathed, would rip through her chest. And when she thought that she wasn't strong enough to ever overcome it, Jacob's face would swim before her eyes, and something new and vibrant would stir within her.

Bella pressed her hand harder against his chest. "If I could just let you inside my head you could…you'd get it, just how crazy…how messed up this whole thing…"

"Bella," Jake interrupted her rambling, his voice more normal now – all calm and tightly controlled. "Time for a brutally honest question: do you love me?"

The blunt question caught her by surprise. "I don't know," she confessed lamely, for the umpteenth time in as many days.

"That's not an answer," Jacob muttered harshly. "It's not a hard question."

"Yes it is," Bella shot back, anger rising in her voice this time. "Love is nothing but one big confusion and complication and…and mess."

"No, love is simple: you either feel it or you don't. It's how you deal with love, how you handle it, how it affects your life that makes it complicated. But the emotion, that feeling you get in your chest and your head and your gut? That's easy."

Bella wanted nothing more than to smack him and exclaim that he had no idea what he was talking about – he was just a stupid kid with a stupid crush. But when she opened her mouth to speak the words rushed through her lips uncontrollably, like a damn had cracked somewhere deep inside of her. "You just don't understand Jake. I'm not even a person any more! I'm pieces of Bella because of love. And what I felt…what I feel is something that you don't just know that…that you just don't "get over". But then I stumble into your garage and it all becomes a tangled mess because on most days I feel like I don't have the strength to turn on the lights or get up in the morning, but you crawl into bed with me and put me on the back of a bike and you smile at me and it makes me feel like I can do it as long as I have you with me. And that's not the love I know and I don't know what it means all I know is that this is just a mess that we've gotten ourselves into and I don't know the way out anymore!"

Jacob didn't say anything at first. Instead he reached out through the darkness and touched Bella's panting body, reaching up to her, raising her chin with the crook of his finger. He'd left a candle burning by the book on his nightstand, and through the flickering gold and gray she could faintly make out the contours of his face as he stared at her.

"Bella," he said again. "Do you love me?"

This time the word spilled from her lips breathlessly, easily. "Yes."

The walls were gone, the damn was shattered, and Bella was tired and flustered and distracted just long enough for her instincts to voice what her heart knew to be true all along: yes, she did love Jacob. Yes, it was real. Not some echo of the emotions he clearly felt for her, or a paltry martyristic attempt to make him happy by sacrificing her own needs.

Bella Swan loved Jacob Black.

True, it wasn't the same as loving _him,_ as loving Edward. That had been like a ride in a stock car, a rollercoaster loop. Fast and hard and a blur of self contained wonder, but accompanied with the knowledge that the ride would either stop or kill them both in the process. In many ways it nearly had. In Bella's mind it had actually succeeded for a while…all those months lost…

But loving Jacob was different. Like a baseball glove or a favorite pair of blue jeans, their relationship had been forged over time, through trials and struggles, successes and failures. But the wear and tear was what made it special, perfect, and in the end it fit like a second skin – easy and soft and warm and made for exactly who she was.

Who they were.

Together.

"Yes?" It was Jacob's turn to be disbelieving. Too fast for Bella's eyes to register he swept her off her feet and into his lap. "Really?" he asked softly, holding her gently, like a china doll he was afraid to drop and shatter.

A hunger burned in his eyes. How long had be been waiting, Bella wondered. How long had he wanted to hear those words from her? She placed her hand firmly against his cheek. "I…really," she said softly, amazed at how easily the words slipped from her lips. She leaned in and punctuated that declaration with a swift kiss. But even after she broke away, he held her there, cheek to cheek, for a long time.

And in that very moment Bella finally understood something about her mother: bravery was simple when you knew it was right. Right didn't always equate to easy – Jacob was not going to able to wave a wand and repair all the parts of her that had rusted and disintegrated and disappeared into the depths of the Pacific – but that didn't matter because it just meant the battle with him beside her was the worthier cause.

Jake was certainly worthy.

And looking into his eyes, Bella was beginning to think that maybe she was too.

So neither of them moved, both afraid to pierce the bubble that had sheltered them from the rest of the world, and made them part of each others. They had used up all their words saying things that were only shallow parodies of the emotions they represented. There was something in their actions that conveyed more than their voices ever could. Something in the way that Jake held her so tightly to his chest, he seemed to be trying to make her a prisoner of his ribcage. Something in the way that Bella could momentarily breathe without pain, as if the tightness in her chest had had more to do with a newly formed love, and less to do with a dearly departed one.

Something in the way that when Jake leaned over and blew out the dwindling stub of the candle, Bella had no desire to spend the evening in any other place but his arms. The anger, the words from before, right and wrong, vanished into the blackness. And in the abyss, Jacob and Bella found each other.

* * *

_Bella was dying._

_No, not dying. Roasting alive._

_The fire danced in front of her, but the farther she retreated from it, deeper into her room, the warmer it got. The air cooked in her lungs, hands flying to her throat as she clawed for air. She was drowning on dry land._

_She was drowning again. _

_Tongues of flame licked her doorway, but it did not ignite. It beckoned, a safe haven which she had to make it to, make it through…_

_She hovered at the invisible edge, the break line, hands outstretched to the flames._

"_Bella, love…" Hands around her wrists, and pleading golden eyes, that pulled her back back back to the corner, back to the window, back to the darkness and the heat and the lung crushing smoke. "Stay…"_

_She pulled back, and felt the fingers, the shackles, crack like bitter porcelain and fall away. _

"_I'm sorry…"_

_She stepped into the flames._

_

* * *

_Bella awoke suddenly, damp with sweat and feeling shaky. She wriggled her hands free from the tangled sheets and tangled limbs. In the darkness they seemed perfect, free from burns and scars, untouched by the flames that had seemed so real.

The dreams always seemed real.

Jake shifted where he spooned behind her, muttering and burying his face deeper into the crook of her neck, the curtain of her hair. He reached out and grasped at her hand, lacing his fingers between her own again.

Bella burned at his touch. The familiar scorch that reminded her of a couch and a fireplace and a stolen kiss that passed between them again and again. Stolen glances and stolen caresses and stolen heats. Bare flesh against bare flesh.

The fire seeped into her stomach, and trickled downward. Bella had to clamp her lips shut over the longing sigh that threatened to punctuate the air.

But it didn't matter. Jacob had a sixth sense that was tied to her in some inexplicable way. "Bells…you 'wake?" He nuzzled her neck again, and Bella shivered.

"Just a dream," she whispered heavily. Her heart was pounding inside her chest. "I'm okay, I'm just…a little warm." She wriggled away from him a bit, but Bella knew Jacob's proximity wasn't the source of her discomfort. At least not directly.

He sighed sleepily again. "You wan' me to move to the couch?" But he only wrapped her up tighter in his free arm.

"No, I want you to stay right here," she whispered, hesitating. "But I was thinking of taking my shirt of…like last night…you know if you don't mind."

Jake's neck suddenly snapped upright, the sleep retreating from his face. He perched up on one elbow and looked down at her with a slightly wicked gleam in his eye. "I liked last night," he said cautiously, and as if he was offering to help he freed his hand from her own and began toying with the hem of her shirt. "I liked the way your skin felt on mine."

"Me too." She shivered at his words and the way he proceeded to work her shirt up underneath the covers. Bella rolled over to face him, wiggled her arms through the holes, then ducked her head and allowed Jake to pull the borrowed garment all the way off. He pitched it somewhere in the dark and smoothed back her static charged hair.

"I always knew you were shocking," he said softly, looking at her with something close to reverence. Bella's hands were shaking as she reached up to gently touch his face. Jacob felt the tremor, and covered her hand in his own. "Are you alright, Bells?" he practically whispered.

"I'm not sure," she confessed breathlessly, honestly.

"Okay." He leaned over and kissed her softly, their hands still locked together. There was no hesitation, like the first time. No desperation, like the second. It was just softness and warmth and…

…and love.

Bella leaned into the kiss, savoring the heat, and the way it lingered. Opening herself up to every sensation that was firing in her lips, her body. It felt different tonight. She felt different tonight. Strange.

Jake smiled into the kiss like always, lingering for a moment before he broke away. "God Bells," he murmured. "You look so beautiful…"

Bella felt the color rise in her cheeks. "Are you always this sappy after you take a girl's shirt off?" she couldn't resist asking.

He just grinned wider and stroked her hair again. "I don't know, not a whole lot of experience to go on there."

Bella looked up at him shyly as Jake's hands drifted below the covers and began to tease the length of her collarbone. "You seemed to know what you were doing last night." His fingers drifted lower.

He chuckled, settling back down into the bed and moving her over, reclaiming his position as the big spoon. His arms wound back around her where they continued their naughty endeavors. "Maybe I'm just naturally gifted?"

Bella couldn't see him anymore, but his breath tickled her ear. "That must be it," she sighed, too distracted by his roving hands to care about how lame his lines were. Beneath the sheets, Jake was exploring. He danced on her ribcage, blazed a trail across her stomach, circled her breast leaving increasingly warm paths until he reached the peak. His fingers tweaked her erect nipple and Bella caught her breath sharply.

"Oh!"

Jake squeezed again, his breathing sounding more ragged. "I'm sorry, would you like me to stop?" His lips planted a burning kiss on her neck, teeth grazing the skin ever so softly.

"No…" Bella hissed. "No, no, no."

Jake wound his one hand down beneath her hips where he clutched at her thigh, tracing the soft skin up the leg of her shorts. Bella held her breath as he abandon her breast with the other one and slid it beneath the waistband of her shorts. She was bound, tied up like a package by his limbs, but as his thumb brushed against the top of her panties Bella realized that she didn't really mind too much.

Jake leaned in a kissed her ear. "Tell me if I go too far," he whispered.

Instead she arched into his touch, silently urging him downward. Pleading, in the confines of her mind: further, harder, more. His skin was electric, it was igniting the bonfire from her dream, a passion, a spreading heat, and it was gathering beneath his hands. Between her legs.

She wanted to feel him there.

Her response spurred Jake on, and he began exploring her with the gentlest of pressure. Teasing, his fingers caressed the damp fabric again and again, tracing her from top to bottom. Bella writhed beneath his touch, craving more than Jake was ready to give just yet.

"Bella," he said huskily, and she felt him tauntingly trace the seam of her panties. "I think this might be easier if we got something out of the way…"

Bella gasped nervously as he began to pull down her shorts, and the underwear beneath them. Something clenched in her stomach nervously. "Wait," she gasped, catching his wrists. She opened her eyes and rolled over where Jake's face swam into view as he propped himself up on a pillow beside her.

He smiled the way she liked. That genuine grin that was all Jacob, the real Jacob. _Her_ Jacob. "Trust me," he assured her, holding her gaze. His expression flickered slightly, and in that instant Bella could tell he was nervous too.

She released his hands and raised her hips and Jake slowly peeled the clothing away. She felt it reach her calves, where she kicked them off and pushed them down to the edge of the bed with her toes. The second they were gone Bella exhaled a breath she hadn't been aware of holding.

She was lying naked in Jacob Black's bed.

She shivered beneath his penetrating gaze, as he trailed a finger up the inside of her thigh. "Are you alright?"

Was she? Bella couldn't seem to make sense of what was happening, all she knew it she didn't want it to stop. Her nervous smile broke into a moan as he reached that place between her legs once more.

With those amazing hands Jake elicited responses from Bella that she'd never heard before. She bit her lip against the animalistic noises trying to escape from her throat as he toyed with her softly.

"Help me," he suddenly pleaded against her ear. "I'm lost here Bells…" and his voice wavered momentarily. Bella brazenly grabbed his wrist and guided him to that place they were both seeking. "Here?" He stroked her clit softly with his thumb and Bella couldn't stifle her moans any longer.

She raised herself off the bed, pushing up against his touch as her vision swam wickedly. Jake pushed back and the resulting surge threatened to overwhelm her. Bella closed her eyes, giving herself over to her other senses as Jacob, evidently feeling much more confident, played with her relentlessly.

He circled her sensitive bud again and again, and Bella felt a nameless need welling up inside her, growing with the pressure that seemed to be spreading outward from the core of her body. "More please," she pleaded senselessly. "Jake I…I…"

Bella couldn't speak, couldn't focus, couldn't comprehend what was happening as Jake responded by spreading her open and gently pushing inside her. She felt herself clench tightly around him as Jake slowly slipped his finger deeper and deeper. Bella clutched at the mattress, at Jacob, at anything she could touch as he pressed himself into her depths, and then retreated. She thrust her hips upward eagerly, urging him to do it again.

And he obliged. In and out, Jake explored her neck with his mouth while his fingers explored inside her. His teeth raked at her soft skin hungrily, gently with each thrust. And each time she moaned his name he shivered against her.

His hot breath on the nape of her neck, Jacob's ragged gasps drew Bella away from her own pleasure as she suddenly realized the inequity of the situation. With extreme willpower she grabbed his wrist and pulled him out of her.

"What are you doing?"

"Trust me," she told him. She flipped him over, then motioned for him to sit up against the headboard. Like the night before Bella straddled his lap, resting on her knees. And like the night before the look in his eyes gave her all the confidence she needed.

With trembling fingers she again reached for the tie of his shorts. "Bella, you don't--" he started to say, but she cut him off with a kiss. She'd been stopped last night, but she wasn't about to be similarly deterred this time around. She parted his lips hungrily while her fingers fumbled with the string, brushing clumsily against his all too apparent bulge.

When the knot finally gave she broke away.

"You don't have to, Be--" Jacob started to protest again as Bella wrenched his zipper down.

"But I want to," she replied sharply. "I want to make _you _feel good too…"

"You do ma—Oh God!" Bella reached inside his shorts and wrapped her fingers deftly around his shaft. His mouth hung open as she slowly trailed down its length, brushing a soft tangle of hair, before climbing to toy with the sensitive head.

She let go and in perfect unison they both scrambled to remove the last errant piece of his clothing. Finally on equal footing, Bella drank in the sight of him. Long and lean and cut. She grabbed him again, eagerly repeating the same motion as before. It was Jake's turn to throw back his head and as he bucked into her touch.

She applied more pressure, working the length of his member achingly slow. Jake pulled his taught fingers down her back, squeezing and touched every inch of her skin as she played with him. "God Bella…you're sooo good at that…"

"I have no idea what I'm doing," she admitted throatily. Her own muscles clenched achingly each time Jake moved beneath her. Some animal part inside of her screamed for something more. She wanted to be pressed up against him, their sweaty bodies moving in unison. She wanted to feel each pump of his body inside her.

"Just don't st--" was all he got out before Bella released him. Jake moaned brokenly, raggedly breathing. She didn't give him time to catch his breath, as she climbed up his lap and positioned him squarely against his opening.

"Bells," he whispered, composure returning. "Are you sure?" His hands stroked her back reassuringly.

She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. "I'm sure. I want to do this." Bella leaned in and stole a kiss that turned into two, four. "I want to do this with you."

With nervous desire, she lowered herself onto him. A momentary bite of pain exploded somewhere inside her, and Jacob caught her hips as her body tensed against him. But it ebbed under the heat that he was rapidly spreading within her. Bella guided him in, feeling herself stretch to accommodate his every inch.

Jake filled her to the brim, and as she thrust her hips against him Bella could feel that longed for release building inside. The animal in her chest was growing, and it wanted out.

"Bella," Jacob moaned, his hands clawing at her back. "Jesus, you feel so good." He grabbed her hips and raised her upwards, only to lower her back down again.

Bella thrust down slowly, grinding against him. "Say it again, Jake," she pleaded. Her hands drifted off his neck and clutched the top of his headboard in desperation.

"Bella…" he repeated. "Oh God, Bells."

She leaned in and attacked his neck ferociously, kissing and biting and licking. She teased his skin with her tongue, sucked it gently between her teeth. "I love the way you say that," she breathed against him, borrowing his line. She understood it better now. "When you say my name like that…just for me."

He pulled her tighter against him. "Just for you," he agreed. "Always for you, Bells. It's – ahh – it's always been for you…"

Again and again, Bella forced herself down on top of him, reveling in the way it felt when Jake filled her completely, and savoring the lurching emptiness he left behind when they broke apart. It was a dance, a maddening dizzy complex series of steps and rhythms and desire that even Bella managed to understand. Each time Jake drove into her she felt his blazing heat stoke the fire deep within her core. Her muscles clenched one by one as the pyre raged.

"Jake," she pleaded incoherently. Again and again she whispered his name until with one final thrust, something inside Bella exploded. She clenched, inside and out, writhing against his chest as the orgasm rolled over her body in waves. Her breathless whispers spelled out incoherent words in a language only lovers understood as Jake took her weight in his hands.

He held her up, drove himself into her. Each thrust only prolonged her own pleasure, and Bella reveled in it until Jacob couldn't stand it any longer. They throbbed once more in unison as, with one final gasp, he erupted inside her.

Weak and shaky, he pulled her down against his chest. Down into his arms. "Bells, oh Bells," he repeated over and over again, running his fingers through her damp and matted hair. "God Bells, that was just…"

"I know," she panted weakly. Exhaustion was beginning to replace euphoria, and she snuggled tightly him as her sweat soaked body began to cool. "I know." Her thoughts were a jumbled mess, a jagged puzzle of emotions and sensations. But Jake was beside her. Jake was her anchor. And without needing to rationalize it she knew that her heart was pounding only for him.

"I really do love you," he murmured.

Strangely, it was laughter that Bella felt overwhelming her. She was naked and sweaty and drained…and all she could do was laugh. "It doesn't count when you say it now," she teased. "There's no blood flowing to your brain. You're not thinking straight"

He chuckled weakly in response. "Bells, I could love you without thinking at all. I could love you without air, without blood, without bones in my body." His lips found hers and she kissed him back weakly. "That you can always count on…"

* * *

It was light when Bella opened her eyes. Not light in that it was raining during the day time, but light in that the sun was actually out. The absence of sound, the lack of rain and hail thundering onto the roof, was practically deafening. The damned sounds of silence, punctuated only by Jacob's soft snoring. Her hair fluttered each time he exhaled, warm against the top of her head as she lay cradled against his chest.

Bella was fascinated by the way he slept – how the soft smile seemed etched to his peaceful face. Those lines of worry, the ones she'd seen far too frequently since his transformation, had vanished. He looked…contented, happy.

It was the first time she'd ever watched anyone else in the throws of sleep. A dark, twisted realization perhaps, but it no longer frightened Bella. Those moments were bound to come, just as they were bound to pass. And for the first time she really understood why Edward had been so fascinated with her sleeping habits. It was the elimination of the mask that everyone seemed to wear, a glimpse into the secret soul when their guard was down. The Jake she was looking at now was her Jake, absent the tight control and stiff demeanor. Even in sleep, his smile was friendly, bright, genuine. Gently, she reached up and traced the curve of his cheek with her hand.

Jake leaned into the touch reflexively, and stirred. "Hey," he mumbled thickly, kissing the top of her head. A split second later he froze and went rigid. "How're you s'morning?"

"Contemplative," she answered softly. "I was thinking about what you said last night – about how it's easy to love you in the dark…"

Jake, almost instantly awake, remained frozen…braced for impact. "Yeah?"

"You were right, sort of," she confessed. "It was easy to be with you in the dark. In the morning everything was perfectly clear. What I stood to risk, what I stood to lose…the scars that we both carry. We're an ugly mess in broad daylight, you and I. But at night…" she trailed off.

"Yeah?" Jake prompted her again with baited breath.

"At night it was easy to just…surrender. Everything was hidden and everything was close and small and warm and safe. I didn't have to see myself reflected in your eyes, I didn't have to see the look on your face if it wall went wrong. It was just…it was easy. It's hard to face what you stand to lose after you've been…after you've lost it all before…"

Jake seemed to relax, but his arms tightened around her. "You're not going to lose me Bells. I'm not going to be something else that you have to overcome."

"I know that." She allowed herself to crash into that embrace, her cheek pressed against the warm skin of his chest. His heart beat frantically beneath her, and Bella dimly recalled burning lungs and burning hands that beat against her chest in vain, trying to make her own heart mimic the sound. _Don't leave me, Bella! Breathe, Bella! Damnit, Bella, breathe!_ She wasn't the only one with something at stake, someone to lose.

She took a shuddering breath, but her voice was steady when she spoke. "You're not going to lose me either."

And this time she was the one smiling into their kiss as Jake pulled them together, and threw the covers over their heads.


End file.
